1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a tablet supply apparatus having a function of filling tablets into a container such as a bag, a bin or the like.
2. Description of Related Art
There has been hitherto known a tablet supply apparatus in that a plurality of tablet cases accommodated according to category (kind) are provided, predetermined kinds of tablets are taken out from tablet cases on the basis of input prescription data into a hopper, the collected tablets are filled from the hopper into a container such as a bag, a bin or the like and a container in which desired kinds of tablets are filled is automatically prepared. As one of the above type tablet supply apparatuses has been proposed a tablet supply apparatus having a tablet feeder for adding the tablet supply apparatus with a tablet which has not yet been set in any table case when it is required to fill a container with the tablet concerned (for example, see JP-A-2004-203433). In the tablet supply apparatus disclosed the above publication, plural accommodating compartments are formed in the tablet feeder. When an operation of filling tablets into a container is started, it is instructed to an operator in advance which kind of tablets should be put into which accommodating compartment, and the operator beforehand executes an advance preparation of putting a predetermined kind of tablets into a predetermined accommodating compartment on the basis of this instruction. After the advance preparation is finished, an operation of filling tablets into a container is started by the tablet supply apparatus.
However, the tablet supply apparatus described above has a problem that the advance preparation which is executed by the operator before the operation of filling tablets into a container is cumbersome. Particularly, when various kinds of tablets are to be put into the accommodating compartment, the operation is required to be prudential to execute the putting work because the accommodating compartment is small, and thus there is a problem that the putting work become troublesome.